This invention relates to a safety steering wheel comprising a cover made of soft elastic plastic and an impact protector which is provided on the hub of the steering wheel and consists of a gas bag, which is collapsed in a position of rest and in response to an impact is suddenly inflatable by means of a compressed gas which is adapted to be produced by a propellant that is accommodated in a housing, and a cover hood which is disposed over the gas bag and is made of soft elastic plastic, in which a reinforcing layer is embedded and which has a rated breaking line.
Such a cover hood serves not only to protect the collapsed gas bag and the housing which contains the propellant for inflating the gas bag but is also intended to have a reasonably pleasing appearance. It is known to provide such cover hoods which have a soft elastic plastic layer, which preferably consists of polyurethane foam and is reinforced by woven fabric inserts made of nylon yarns and which has one or more rated breaking lines, along which the plastic layer is torn in response to the activation of the impact protector. The cover hood has on its inside surface an annular peripheral undercut, which receives a suitable shoulder of the carrier for the housing which contains the propellant. To avoid an automatic separation of the cover hood from the carrier for the housing in case of an activation of the impact protector, it is necessary to provide a additional metal strip and to clamp the edge of the cover hood in position between said additional metal strip and the oppositely disposed carrier for the housing which contains the propellant.
Since the woven fabric insert by which the cover hood is reinforced consists of a plurality of individual parts, which are made of nylon yarns and have been sewn to each other, it is rather difficult in general to always provide the woven fabric insert in a precisely fitting manner and there is a rather high reject quota. Besides, the placing of the woven fabric insert into the mold during the molding of the cover hood made of soft elastic plastic requires a relatively long time and relatively long standstill periods of the molding machine. Another disadvantage resides in the fact that the reinforcing layer consisting of a woven fabric insert cannot prevent a bulging of the plastic hood under the action of forces exerted by the collapsed gas bag.